Snow, Balls
by YellowBoots
Summary: Christmas 2005, oneshot. I humbly offer this as a poor substitute for the holiday episode we should be watching tonight. Sigh.


**Note the First:** my very first fan-fic. If you like it tell your friends. (If you don't like it tell _my_ friends so they can track you down and…and…and say mean things. Yeah.)

**Note the Second:** this story takes place in season six, but it's April-less. (It's set in December, so technically it's also January-less, February-less, March-less, etc.) I don't know what to do with the kid yet. But neither does Luke, so it's okay.

**Note the Third:** Disclaimer. It may surprise you to learn that I actually _do_ own Gilmore Girls and all things related. Yes, that's right, my name is Amy Sherman-Palladino, and Luke Danes is a real person. I know, because he just asked me out (sorry, Daniel, but I said yes.) Also in my fantasy world, chocolate is one of the main food groups in the USDA's new pyramid, you can burn 1,000 calories just by sitting on the couch watching TV (more if you're watching Gilmore Girls), and the comfort and wearability of any pair of shoes increases in direct correlation to their style and cuteness factor. Yeah, you're not buying any of this, are you. Nope, didn't think so.

So without much further ado about nothing, here's the story. Enjoy, and Happy Holidays.

**Snow, Balls**

"Lorelai!" Luke's voice drifted plaintively through from the living room, over the strains of Alvin and the Chipmunks warbling out "All I Want for Christmas." "These balls are too big!"

Lorelai yanked her head out of the hall closet with a delighted, slightly muffled, laugh.

Luke pointed his finger at her warningly, but it was too late.

"Dirty!" she chorused gleefully, along with Rory, who was seated cross-legged on the living room floor ceremoniously unveiling Christmas ornaments stuffed in a Twizzlers max-pack box.

Luke rolled his eyes and frowned at Rory, who just smiled up at him angelically. "Figures," he grumbled. "Now that you're home I'm outnumbered."

"Aw, honey, you were always outnumbered," Lorelai kissed his cheek sympathetically. "You just didn't know it." She dumped another arm-load of tree decorations on the coffee table, then folded her arms. Adopting a serious tone, she inquired, "Now, what's the matter with your balls?"

"Ah, jeez," he sighed. Not even bothering to distract her from her one-track focus, he simply held up a pair of large glass globes and waved them at the tree. "The branches are too puny," he explained in frustration. "They don't support the weight of the ba--, er, ornaments."

"Don't say puny, you'll hurt Doug's feelings," Lorelai chastised as she patted the Christmas tree lovingly.

"You named the tree Doug?" Luke asked with exaggerated patience.

"Short for Douglas," Rory chimed in.

"'Cause it's a Douglas fir, get it?" Lorelai elbowed him knowingly.

"Oh, I get it," Luke muttered. "Fine- no offense intended to Doug, over here, but the branches _are_ too small."

"Well, you're the one who chose this tree," Lorelai huffed.

"I believe my exact words were, 'I don't care which one we get, just pick one before Valentine's Day,'" Luke corrected with an air of long suffering.

"Humbug," Lorelai pronounced grandly, draping a long strand of gold tinsel around her neck like a feather boa.

"You're right," Luke accepted readily. "So how about Ebenezer just sits this one out with a beer?"

"No!" Rory and Lorelai protested together. Luke stared at them, taken aback at the strength of their reaction.

"It's a thing we do," Lorelai tried to explain hastily. "Me and Rory. We decorate the tree and eat popcorn and listen to schmaltzy holiday music, and make up stories about what the ornaments have been doing all shoved together in the boxes all year long. It's what we do. And you have to do it, too, because you're a part of we now."

"It's our way of saying, 'Welcome to the family,'" Rory added in her best Godfather accent.

Luke was silent, touched. Almost every single Christmas for the last fifteen years, since his dad died, he had spent alone. He'd open the diner in the afternoon just to have something to do, just on the very unlikely chance that someone would come by. Just on the very unlikely chance that Someone would want coffee. And now Someone did want coffee. Someone wanted _him_. She was all in, for real this time. This was forever, because now he was part of the tradition, and you couldn't just _stop_ being part of a tradition. This was belonging. This was the way it was going to be for the rest of his life.

He looked at Lorelai, masking a grin with his trademark grumble, and feigning resignation. "Well, I suppose I can decorate the tree, and I'll eat popcorn. I doubt I really have a choice about the schmaltzy music-" he looked to Rory for confirmation, and she shook her head serenely- "but there's _no way_ I'm making up stories about the ornaments."

"Oh, but you have to!" Lorelai countered, holding up a misshapen red blob. "Mr. Bobbles has been pretty frisky this year- well, he must have been, since we have way more ornaments than we did last year, and they don't just grow on trees, you know. You have to help us figure out who the lucky lady was."

"How about I string the lights," Luke suggested, well aware that a sudden switch in conversation topic was a good tactic to use when distracting a Gilmore.

"Hurray!" Rory cheered in relief, waving a pair of candy-cane reindeer and secretly wondering if anyone would notice if one went missing. Candy canes didn't have an expiration date, did they? Even if they had red felt pom-poms and brown pipe-cleaners hot-glued all over them?

"Excellent," Lorelai agreed. "That part always takes us the longest. We are two smart, extremely intelligent women, but somehow, every year, the wrong end of the lights ends up at the top of the tree. One year I even contemplated turning the tree upside down so we could plug the lights in, but Rory said it would be problematic."

"I can see the dilemma," Luke commiserated with a straight face.

"You are now officially in charge of lights, mister," Lorelai smiled, handing him a hopelessly tangled bundle of wire and colored bulbs. He didn't need to know that Rory had figured out which end of the lights was which at the age of four, or that they had clocked the light-stringing part of the decorating at 35.8 seconds last year.

Luke spent ten minutes untangling the string of lights, while Rory and Lorelai opened the box that held Rory's homemade ornaments. She'd made one every year in school until she was ten, each one holding a school picture, and Lorelai marveled at how fast her daughter had grown up. Twenty-one. It seemed so old and so young at the same time. Man, when she was twenty-one she had a five-year-old kid and health insurance payments. Rory had… everything else.

"Hey, I remember when you were that small," Luke remarked, looking over Lorelai's shoulder at Rory's fifth-grade picture plastered in the middle of a lopsided snowman's belly.

"I was a cute kid," Rory said nostalgically.

"And your mom let you drink coffee even then," Luke stated dryly. "It's amazing you don't have two heads." Lorelai made a face at him.

"Yeah, but if it wasn't for the coffee, we would have never come to Luke's," Rory pointed out. "And then where would you be?"

Luke smiled at her affectionately. "Good point." He hitched up his jeans and knelt on the floor, crawling on his hands and knees for a few feet to stretch the string of lights to the outlet in the far corner behind the tree. Lorelai took a moment to appreciate the view.

"Stop looking at my butt," Luke's voice was muffled by branches.

"I'm not looking at your butt," Lorelai protested, completely unconvincingly. "Rory, tell him I'm not looking at his butt."

"We need more popcorn," Rory announced tactfully, leaping to her feet, grabbing the empty bowl, and disappearing into the kitchen.

Luke emerged from under the tree, bits of bark and needles stuck to his flannel shirt and his hair all ruffled. Lorelai offered a hand to help him up, and he dusted off his jeans while admiring his handiwork. "Looks good," he commented, referring to the now-illuminated Christmas lights.

Lorelai slid her arm around his waist. "Sure does," she agreed, letting her hand drop and mischievously pinching his backside. "Although someone certainly thinks a lot of himself."

He grabbed her offending hand quickly and held it, half-wishing that the instant-popcorn Rory was making would take a little longer than an instant. Lorelai shifted, turning so she could wrap both arms around him tightly. He rested his chin on her hair, smiling. Suddenly she jerked upright, her wide-eyed gaze focused on the window behind the tree. "Is that-" she began excitedly. She gasped in delight. "It is! Come on!"

Yanking Luke along by the hand, Lorelai barreled outside, not even stopping to put her shoes on, though Luke managed to snag his jacket from the hall as he was dragged past. Lorelai stood in the middle of the front yard, hands clasped, shivering, face upturned to the tiny white flakes just beginning to drift earthward. "Snow," she breathed.

"Lorelai, it's freezing," Luke complained, folding his arms and stamping his feet.

Despite his grumbling, he couldn't help but smile as he watched her spin around with her arms flung out, giggling like a little girl. She tried to hug herself so she could jealously guard the giddy joy that filled her, but it was too big, and she was too happy. She needed to fling out her arms to encompass her whole world- or at least her front lawn. She spun faster and faster, laughing in sheer delight and happiness, gratefully enjoying a brief moment in time where everything was perfect. Rory was _home_, after months apart from her, and she had finally come back from whatever dark and defeated place she'd been. Rory was _Rory_ again, and Rory was _home_. Luke blurred past her vision in a streak of green and blue as she whirled around, and the love and joy that shot through her at the sight of him almost overwhelmed her. Rory- Luke- snow- it wasn't scientifically possible to be any happier. If an unlimited supply of coffee suddenly showed up in her driveway, she was positive she would explode and die of happiness.

"Did I ever tell you how much I love snow?" she called giddily to Luke, spinning closer and closer.

"You might have mentioned it once or twice," Luke answered dryly. She made one final spin before dizzily conceding the power of centrifugal force and staggering into his arms. Breathing heavily, she looked at him, so close, and so _there_. Just like always.

"I love you, too, you know," she said suddenly, before she could think. "I don't think I've ever mentioned that."

He stopped breathing, though his heart pounded as if he'd just run a marathon, and he stared at her in awe. His eyes, darkened to a deep blue of mysterious depths, bored into hers.

"N-no," he managed to stammer stupidly. "You haven't."

She didn't move, but he felt her flinch and draw back from him, almost panicked. The bright bubble of joy burst, leaving her to stare at him with the numbing fear that he wasn't going to say it back, or that he was blaming her for not saying it sooner. His heart clutched within him at the thought that he'd done that to her with his thoughtless words that almost sounded like an accusation, and without thinking both hands shot out and he grabbed her by the wrists to pull her back to him.

"Lorelai!" he reached out, frantically, his voice as raspy as sandpaper on wood. She met his eyes again hesitantly, afraid to trust, afraid to be vulnerable, and he could think of no words to assuage her fears once and for all.

Helplessly, desperately, he kissed her, silently begging her to believe in the strength and eternity of his devotion. If she only _knew_- if he could only _say_ it, and make this the moment so long awaited and worked for. Lorelai clutched his jacket in her fists as she demanded of the kiss proof that he loved her just as fiercely and passionately as she did him. His lips seared hers like a brand, a mark of permanence and possession that claimed her completely. She didn't let go, but somehow she found herself separated, breathlessly gasping in lungfuls of air, even though it had felt that she could only truly breathe with his mouth on hers.

They stared at each other for long moments, barely inches apart, chests heaving. The moment stretched out, longer and longer, until the vague, undefined point of revelation had come and gone.

Lorelai hid her lingering doubts and still smiled sadly at him with something akin to forgiveness and understanding. He had almost said it, or conveyed it. She was almost sure. 99.9 percent sure, in fact, but right then she would have given anything in the world for that last tenth. She was almost sure he knew what this meant to her, how earth-shatteringly new and unknown it felt to feel such an intense and all-abiding power, how completely terrifying to surrender herself to it, to him. He had to know the kind of courage and faith she had summoned up, to be able to tell him. To be the first one.

The snow was falling harder now, and the socks she'd danced outside in were soggy and cold. She shivered, and took his hand again to lead him inside. The snow had only provided one magic miracle- her own triumph over doubt, fear, and the self-protective instinct that told her to maintain a safe emotional distance. It would be foolish to expect more. Snow could only do so much.

She stopped abruptly as their arms stretched out as far as they would go and he still didn't move.

"I love you too."

She held her breath as she turned around to face him. One look at his face, into his eyes- so earnest, so heart-felt, so _loving, _and so scared, and she threw herself into his arms. They stood, holding each other tightly but not saying a word, as the snow fell down all around them. She didn't cry.

Here was the last tenth. Here was her certainty. Head against his chest, she listened to his heart beat steadily as he gently and rhythmically stroked her hair. "I love you, too," he repeated quietly, as much to reinforce it in his own mind as in hers.

She leaned back to look at him, eyes bright with happiness and a feeling of intense security.

"Huh," she observed, as close to nonchalant as she could possibly get under the circumstances. "Maybe we should get married."

Luke shrugged, a wide grin full of relief stretching across his face. "I'm free."

Lorelai laughed and pulled his head down to kiss him again briefly. "Aren't you already engaged to some other woman?" she asked teasingly after she released him.

Luke waved his hand in careless dismissal. "Word on the street is she's only marrying me for my coffee," he explained airily. "Plus she drives me to distraction- always talking about some ridiculous thing or another-" He stopped quickly when she punched him in the arm. "Ow!"

"It's only what you deserve," she sniffed disdainfully. She tried to pout and feign injured feelings, but the corners of her mouth would not stay down, and she gave up the charadeeasily.

"Lorelai Gilmore!" Rory hollered from the porch, as a way to tactfully (and loudly) announce her presence. "Didn't your mother ever tell you to put on a coat when you go out in the snow?"

"My mother told me a lot of things," Lorelai called back, grinning, as she relinquished her tight hold on Luke, "And if I'd listened to everything she said I'd be a very different woman today."

Rory descended the steps, sensibly bundled in her own winter coat, gloves, scarf and hat, carrying Lorelai's jacket and a pair of size-nine yellow Fisherman's boots.

"You'd be a different, _warmer_ woman today," Rory pointed out, handing over the jacket. Lorelai just shrugged blissfully and started humming a few bars of "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm," shooting a meaningful look at Luke. He smiled back,happy but completely confused, and Lorelai made a mental note to introduce her fiancé to Irving Berlin. Irving Berlin's music, anyway. Introducing Luke to Irving Berlin the person would be difficult and a little weird, since he was dead. Irving Berlin. Not Luke. With that mental entanglement Lorelai let Rory strong-arm her into her jacket, shivering but trying hard not to.

"You didn't make Luke wear a jacket," she whined- adorably, to her ears.

"Luke has a jacket," Rory explained patiently. "Besides, he's a grown man, he can decide when it's cold enough to put a coat on. You, on the other hand, are four, and I have tell you." She dropped the yellow boots at Lorelai's feet. "Put these on."

Impulsively Lorelai flung her arm around Rory's shoulders and kissed her cheek warmly. "I love you, kid," she smiled.

"They're just boots, mom," Rory deadpanned, slightly puzzled.

Lorelai just shook her head. She felt a euphoric contentedness, standing in the snow with her arm around her daughter and her hand still tucked firmly in Luke's. She marveled at what she had, right there in her hands.

It was clumsily wrapped, a little worn, and far from perfect.

It wasn't tied with shiny ribbon or arranged beneath an elaborately-decorated picture-perfect tree.

But it was standing in her front yard, covered in snow, some assembly required, with a lifetime guarantee.

The whole package.


End file.
